"Comanches: The Destruction of a People" is a fine read, but as I said to SteveNO, reads more like a cartoon "Graphic Novel" in its depiction of events. Fehrenbach gets some stuff apparently willfully out of sequence, sacrificing facts for effect, sorta like he was writing historical fiction.
Unforgivably, one place where he does this are the episodes where Colt's revolvers were first employed on horseback against Comanches. If that ain't sacriledge, I dunno what is.
Mostly Fehrenbach just channels Walter Prescott Webb, the 1930's author of "The Texas Rangers". Has to be said too, there were other folks out on the Plains what whacked more Comanches than the Rangers ever did, Fehrenbach omits mention of these almost entirely.
I thumbed through "Empire of the Summer Moon" in a bookstore maybe a year back, I was disappointed, maybe I hit the revisionist section I dunno.
Two books I ALWAYS recommend highly were both dictated by people who were actually there.
First off,
Noah Smithwick: Arrived as a before independence, a gunsmith by trade, built the first rifled gun made in the colonies. Knew Jim Bowie and fought under him against Mexico at San Antonio prior to the Alamo. Missed the Alamo on account of malaria but met Davy Crockett in transit. Pariticipated as a scout in the "runaway scrape", arriving on the field of San Jacinto shortly after the fact. Rode with the first "ranging companies. Drew blood in combat with Comanches, later LIVED with Comanches for some months. Rode with Lipan Apaches and Texas Rangers against the Comanches on the San Saba.
Best of all his first-person account is free online...
http://www.oldcardboard.com/lsj/olbooks/smithwic/otd.htmThe other guy is Texas Ranger Captain and Confederate General John Salmon "RIP" Ford. His collected memoirs are available even at the big chain bookstores in Texas for about $15: see...
RIP Ford's Texas.
http://www.utexas.edu/utpress/books/forri2.htmlDoctor, lawyer, newspaper editor, State Senator. Ford likely survived more plains combat against Comanches than any other White man of his era, and best of all lived to tell about it. Fans of "Lonesome Dove" will recognize that much of that story was inspired by events in RIP Ford's life. He went on to lead Confederate Forces in the last pitched battle of that war, and won.
Both of these guys, Smithwick and Ford, and the adventures they relate would be too good to be true if they weren't real. But they were. Must-reads for anyone interested in Texas.
Birdwatcher
